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Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

blog.ethereum.org

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Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#271

What are the attack vectors on PoS. With PoW you need 51% of the mining power to take over the system, which is very labor intensive to set up. With PoS could you take over all coins by buying 51% of the existing coins? So if the market cap of ETH is 200BB spend 100BB to double your money?

Zack (of https://amoveo.io) has a good write up of some attacks here: https://github.com/zack-bitcoin/amoveo-docs/blob/master//oth....

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#272
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government wants to put a higher price on energy or carbon, it should do so. But it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure. I could see a lot of people make the argument the production of a lot of energy intensive goods is not worth-while.

Government is made out of people. If the people don't want the economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes, they have the right to vote.

But this isn't proposed regulation to prevent an "economy oriented around energy being put into finding hashes".

It's literally regulation to stop "Proof of work". Which is a generic algorithm that can be applied to other circumstances.

It could have applications in CAPTCHA's, or anti-spam.

It could be a critical component of other decentralized technologies, not just blockchain crypto currencies.

Making this math illegal JUST to kill cyptocurrencies seems a tad much, right?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#273
post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

As a technical person, I think we should be a little more careful than to ban a technology because there's a proposal for a newer tech that could work (knowing if it works is harder than a posting on a website saying it's going great in beta). Crypto at all is risky and the tech is uncertain. Seems pretty extreme to get the guns involved on the premise someone somewhere can do it better.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#275
post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

You want air conditioning? You want to eat steak? You want some microprocessors with that guided missile?

Buy bitcoin.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116135412/https://taaalk.co...

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#276
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So burning electricity on running a cryptocurrency is not right, but burning electricity on running servers for Facebook or user tracking is all right? If that's the case, who's the arbiter of what's "too much" power for a use case? If that's not the case, how do you propose to enforce that all use cases use less electricity, and how do you punish those who use too much?

I think the proposal here is very simple. Pass a law against proof of work crypto currencies, don't let perfect be the enemy of good, and deal with the next big waste of power when it comes about by passing a law about it. Don't address of any the things that you are proposing need addressing, because they don't need to be addressed in the same law, or really addressed right now at all. The law doesn't need to try an…

> The law doesn't need to try and anticipate the actions that occur in the future

That's an incredibly dangerous idea.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#277
The minimum amount of Ether to be eligible to stake is 32 Coins, so it appears that last year in June, about 120k addresses would've met that criterion[0]. That probably changed by now, I'd assume the number to be higher as more people set up 'mining rigs'. That's at least a larger number than I would've guessed. I wonder how many people/entities are behind those addresses.

On a side note, I have mixed feelings about PoS. The idea behind Ethereum - that is, as I understand it, being able to deploy smart contracts using a Turing complete language -, is pretty intriguing; but the costs associated with doing so put me off. I tried to estimate how much it'd cost to deploy a fairly small smart contract a couple days ago (admittedly when 'gas costs' were high), and it would've been several hundred dollars, perhaps even surpassing a thousand. It seems like PoS would lower that, which is good, but comes at the great cost that people who aren't already in the game won't be able to acquire Ether without basically paying cash for it. That's a weird dependence on fiat currencies for a 'decentralized ledger'. (And yeah, there might be other means, but none of them are really practical for the average person.)

If there hadn't already been cryptocurrencies, nobody would've thought PoS to be a good idea. A bunch of people who hold some digital certificates that predictably multiply themselves want people to give them money to 'acquire' those? That would've sounded like a scam to me...

[0] https://decrypt.co/31646/nearly-120000-ethereum-wallets-prim...

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#278
post #156
post #133

Good. Very good. This may be a radical take, but I think nations should introduce some unprecedented legislation: ban trade of proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. Don't ban their trade because they make poor financial products, either because of rampant fraud or criminal activity. That's a different argument and requires different approaches. Ban their trade because global society shouldn't accept rampant incentives to l…

If the government wants to put a higher price on energy or carbon, it should do so. But it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure. I could see a lot of people make the argument the production of a lot of energy intensive goods is not worth-while.

>it should not be the arbiter of what's a worthy use of energy expenditure.

I disagree. If we must cap the CO2 we can emit, we should definitely favor basic needs over luxury. Here in France, the government tried to set a carbon tax on gas (which is required for many simply to commute to work, with no affordable alternatives yet) but they refused to impose a tax on jet fuel which is known to be used by the ultra rich to fly their privates on the weekends (while they can afford high speed trains).

We should not just let money decide what's possible, when so many are still in need of basic necessities. Many could pay a 300% tax just to fly 10x a year across the globe (emitting many, many times the carbon footprint of an average household). How would that be fair, when the problem is not what people pay but how the planet is becoming inhabitable?

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want less carbon burned, tax carbon. I'm skeptical of cryptocurrency, but the idea that regulators, already captured by banks, should aggressively ban new financial products that may one day threaten the incumbents makes me wary.

A carbon tax would filter down to the electricity consumer cost. I dont know about you, but I dont want to pay more for electricity so other people can burn electricity for virtual money. Unless you are suggesting taxing crypto itself, in which case… sure!

Crypto is already taxed.

All money has a cost on society. You have to do something to maintain its value. You don't think wars in the middle east -- to maintain the petrodollar -- have an environmental impact?

And when it isn't oil it'll be fights over germanium and lithium veins.

If you actually cared to do more than sit in a chair -- advocating random things you didn't research -- you'd be advocating for Thorium power. Thorium is nearly as abundant as lead -- it's all over the place -- and it's much more clean and less dangerous than even solar or wind.

Re: Ethereum will use around 99.95% less energy post merge

#280
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cringe every time I see such comments. Ban bitcoin or ban beef because it uses too much energy. Humanity will continue to require energy as it advances and banning anything "because it uses too much energy" is a ridiculous advice. How about we ban gold mining, or set quotas on the number of children people may have, that will surely contribute to our CO2 reduction goals. It's also Orwellian and reminiscent of how t…

We have banned a ton of things because they are bad for the environment. It has worked and will continue to work. Things like building design and construction standards are set to a minimum environmental standard, why shouldn't cryptocurrencies.

Building construction standards are a great example of regulatory failure.

By optimizing around energy conservation at all costs, we have homes that cost 3x, held together with glue, susceptible to mold, and filled with toxic crap like vinyl.

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